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Tea-cakes, Yorkshire, Excellent

A yeasted bread cake from Yorkshire made with butter, flour, eggs, milk, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tea-cakes, Yorkshire, Excellent

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.

  2. Add the salt, beaten eggs, milk, and yeast; knead the mixture well.

  3. Place the dough in a bowl, cover with a cloth, and let it rise on the hearth until light and cracked on the surface.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into 10 pieces and roll each into a saucer-sized cake.

  2. Let the cakes rise for a few minutes before the fire.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 20 minutes without turning them over.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the dough.
Fine flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets during baking.
Eggs
Add richness and help bind the dough.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the dough its moisture and softness.
German yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until light and cracked. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas and stretch the gluten network; under-proofed dough bakes dense, while the cracked surface signals the dough has risen enough to bake light.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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